By Roni Senior

This is a review of a training Simon Stanton ran at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield, England - titled “A One Day Introduction To Grovian Metaphor Therapy And The Art Of Clean Language with Simon Stanton.”

So what is 'Grovian Metaphor Therapy' and 'Clean Language'? They are an approach to therapy developed by David Grove (hence Grovian) using a client's own metaphors and symbolic language. Clean Language is a set of nine basic questions (and about twenty or so supplementary questions) which lead the client through exploring their own metaphors.

For example, if the client says "I get all knotted up inside" - the programmer/therapist might as "and what kind of 'knotted up' is that?"

Simon ran a session on client generated metaphors at the Wakefield NLP Practise Group some time ago. When he mentioned that he was running an introductory session on Grovian Metaphor Therapy and Clean Language, I was intrigued to see how he combined his excellent business training skills with the very deep client generated metaphor work I had soon on video of David Groves in action.

The session worked, in part because it was based on the work of Penny Tompkins and James Lawley of The Developing Company ( their web-site is at http://www.devco.demon.co.uk ) and in part because this was an introduction. It was, however, highly practical and most of us left with new skills and, incidentally, resolution of a couple of our own issues. During the day we completed five group or pair exercises which led us to appreciate the power of Clean Language both as client and as operator.

Client generated symbols and metaphors have a habit of evolving and bringing new insights, and resolutions. As David Grove said, the purpose of Clean Language is to "...interrogate the symbol until it confesses its strengths."

We commenced with the two core questions, progressing to use of the nine basic questions in the last session, by which time most of us were effecting useful changes in our partners. As ever there was as much to learn from what did not work as from what did, but it usually worked and Simon was on hand to effect a resolution if required by the time constraints.

The whole session was much lighter and more powerful than I had expected - which says something about the efficacy of Clean Language as well as the way in which Simon led it. He is plainly delighted by what he has learned and enjoys sharing it ( he maintains a web site at http://www.stant-1.demon.co.uk ). Chalk and talk was minimal and highly interactive, with Simon demonstrating before each exercise.

The group included NLPers, therapists, business consultants and those interested in personal development. Everyone left in good spirits and several now want to progress to a training with Penny and James (me included).

On the basics, hospital food was rated from pretty tasteless to pretty good, the room was rather chilly in the morning, but there were hot drinks and a tuck shop. None of which detracts from the fact that the session was inspiring and it was the best single days training I have done in a long while.

Roni Senior - (NLP Practitioner)

Home  | Reviews